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Why Students Forget—and What You Can Do About It

Our brains are wired to forget, but there are research-backed strategies you can use to make your teaching stick.

Teachers have long known that rote memorization can lead to a superficial grasp of material that is quickly forgotten. But new research in the field of neuroscience is starting to shed light on the ways that brains are wired to forget—highlighting the importance of strategies to retain knowledge and make learning stick.

In a recent article published in the journal Neuron , neurobiologists Blake Richards and Paul Frankland challenge the predominant view of memory, which holds that forgetting is a process of loss—the gradual washing away of critical information despite our best efforts to retain it. According to Richards and Frankland, the goal of memory is not just to store information accurately but to “optimize decision-making” in chaotic, quickly changing environments. In this model of cognition, forgetting is an evolutionary strategy, a purposeful process that runs in the background of memory, evaluating and discarding information that doesn’t promote the survival of the species.

“From this perspective, forgetting is not necessarily a failure of memory,” explain Richards and Frankland in the study. “Rather, it may represent an investment in a more optimal mnemonic strategy.”

The Forgetting Curve

We often think of memories as books in a library, filed away and accessed when needed. But they’re actually more like spiderwebs , strands of recollection distributed across millions of connected neurons. When we learn something new—when a teacher delivers a fresh lesson to a student, for example—the material is encoded across these neural networks, converting the experience into a memory.

Forgetting is almost immediately the nemesis of memory, as psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered in the 1880s. Ebbinghaus pioneered landmark research in the field of retention and learning, observing what he called the forgetting curve , a measure of how much we forget over time. In his experiments, he discovered that without any reinforcement or connections to prior knowledge, information is quickly forgotten—roughly 56 percent in one hour, 66 percent after a day, and 75 percent after six days.

So what can be done to preserve the hard work of teaching? After all, evolutionary imperatives—which prune our memories of extraneous information—don’t always neatly align with the requirements of curriculum or the demands of the Information Age. Learning the times tables doesn’t avail when running from lions, in other words, but in the modern world that knowledge has more than proved its mettle.

The Persistence of Memory

The same neural circuitry appears to be involved in forgetting and remembering. If that is properly understood, students and teachers can adopt strategies to reduce memory leaks and reinforce learning.

MIT neuroscientists, led by Richard Cho, explain the mechanisms for synaptic strengthening in a 2015 article , also published in Neuron . When neurons are frequently fired, synaptic connections are strengthened; the opposite is true for neurons that are rarely fired. Known as synaptic plasticity , this explains why some memories persist while others fade away. Repeatedly accessing a stored but fading memory—like a rule of geometry or a crucial historical fact—rekindles the neural network that contains the memory and encodes it more deeply.

Researchers have also learned that not all new memories are created equal. For example, here are two sets of letters to remember:

For readers of English, the second set of letters is more memorable—the more connections neurons have to other neurons, the stronger the memory. The seven letters in NPFXOSK appear random and disjointed, while ORANGES benefits from its existing, deeply encoded linguistic context. The word oranges also invokes sensory memory, from the image of an orange to its smell, and perhaps even conjures other memories of oranges in your kitchen or growing on a tree. You remember by layering new memories on the crumbling foundations of older ones.

5 Teacher Strategies

When students learn a new piece of information, they make new synaptic connections. Two scientifically based ways to help them retain learning is by making as many connections as possible—typically to other concepts, thus widening the “spiderweb” of neural connections—but also by accessing the memory repeatedly over time.

Which explains why the following learning strategies, all tied to research conducted within the past five years, are so effective:

• Peer-to-peer explanations: When students explain what they’ve learned to peers, fading memories are reactivated, strengthened, and consolidated. This strategy not only increases retention but also encourages active learning (Sekeres et al., 2016 ).
• The spacing effect: Instead of covering a topic and then moving on, revisit key ideas throughout the school year. Research shows that students perform better academically when given multiple opportunities to review learned material. For example, teachers can quickly incorporate a brief review of what was covered several weeks earlier into ongoing lessons, or use homework to re-expose students to previous concepts (Carpenter et al., 2012 ; Kang, 2016 ).
• Frequent practice tests: Akin to regularly reviewing material, giving frequent practice tests can boost long-term retention and, as a bonus, help protect against stress , which often impairs memory performance. Practice tests can be low stakes and ungraded, such as a quick pop quiz at the start of a lesson or a trivia quiz on Kahoot , a popular online game-based learning platform. Breaking down one large high-stakes test into smaller tests over several months is an effective approach (Adesope, Trevisan, & Sundararajan, 2017 ; Butler, 2010 ; Karpicke, 2016 ).
• Interleave concepts: Instead of grouping similar problems together, mix them up. Solving problems involves identifying the correct strategy to use and then executing the strategy. When similar problems are grouped together, students don’t have to think about what strategies to use—they automatically apply the same solution over and over. Interleaving forces students to think on their feet, and encodes learning more deeply (Rohrer, 2012 ; Rohrer, Dedrick, & Stershic, 2015 ).
• Combine text with images: It’s often easier to remember information that’s been presented in different ways, especially if visual aids can help organize information. For example, pairing a list of countries occupied by German forces during World War II with a map of German military expansion can reinforce that lesson. It’s easier to remember what’s been read and seen, instead of either one alone (Carney & Levin, 2002 ; Bui & McDaniel, 2015 ).

So even though forgetting starts as soon as learning happens—as Ebbinghaus’s experiments demonstrate—research shows that there are simple and effective strategies to help make learning stick.

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Why Students Forget and How to Prevent it from Happening

James paterson.

• December 6, 2019

It plagues both the third grader who forgets to bring a show-and-tell item to class and the advanced physics high school student who can’t recall a key bit of information on a crucial test. Students at all levels often respond with a familiar two-word phrase when their performance lags: “I forgot”.

Memory and recall are at center of education. Research in this area has pointed out how important retention of information is – and how forgetfulness can be improved.

Why Do Students Forget?

In a blog about the latest brain research, experts at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research explain that learning is closely connected to three types of memory.

Sensory memory is information that is quickly passing through the brain from the senses. If it is given attention, it moves into short-term memory, but only briefly in many cases – less than a minute unless it gains more of our attention and we begin to respond to it (sensory memory is also called “working” memory). If we focus on it further, it then is passed into long-term memory where it can be stored for various periods of time, sometimes for the rest of our lives.

Several factors determine whether information is forgotten or moves into long-term memory, including the circumstances under which it occurred, whether it relates to other familiar items there, and how it is attached to certain emotions.

One memory researcher has determined that there are four reasons for forgetting information : retrieval failure (often if a memory isn’t brought to consciousness and used); interference of some sort from other memories or current circumstances; failure to store it for a variety of reasons; and intentional efforts to forget or minimize the information.

Often with students, they are not engaged enough to move information firmly into long-term memory, or they don’t use and re-use the information to establish it in that portion of the brain.

The Importance of Keeping Students Engaged to Retain Learning

The most fundamental way to make certain that students retain information is by engaging them, and there are a number of books and articles about student engagement – calling on teachers to consider approaches such as changing seating patterns (and flexible seating); improving their relationships with students, using differentiated instruction , and using humor to keep attention. Personalized and flipped and blended learning also have proven successful.

Experts say engagement can involve any approach that actively involves students in their learning.

That can mean hands-on projects, working in groups, independent research, or any style of teaching that includes students in the exploration of a topic, including “reading, writing, listening, discussing, experimenting, modeling, designing and making something,” according to researchers who explored the issue.

Teaching Strategies to Increase Retention Rates

Research in this area has pointed to several techniques that can help students remember information. Spacing out the study of a topic and self-testing and other exercises that retrieve information, often in small chunks, are the most effective. Here are the approaches that were used:

• Practice testing – Self-testing or taking practice tests covering material that has been covered.
• Distributed practice – Implementing a schedule of practice on certain topics that spreads out study activities over time.
• Elaborative interrogation – Asking students to provide an explanation for why a fact or concept is true.
• Self-explanation – Explaining how new information is related to known information, or explaining steps taken during problem solving.
• Summarization – Writing summaries of presented information.
• Highlighting/underlining – Marking potentially important portions of materials while reading.
• Keyword mnemonic – Using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal materials.
• Imagery for text – Attempting to form mental images of text materials while reading or listening.
• Rereading – Restudying text material again after an initial reading.
• #retentionrate , #TeachingStrategies

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Recurring Final Exam Dream?

Of course, you forgot you were taking this course..

Posted September 7, 2009 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

If you've had "the dream" related to school, you know exactly what it is.

This is the dream where it is the day of a final exam, and you realize that you forgot you were taking the course and therefore had not attended any of the classes, did not do the reading, and you certainly are not prepared for today's test. Other variations include your having attended some of the classes, perhaps at the beginning of the semester, and then you just forgot about the class until the day of the final. It was not intentional, but somehow, it just happened.

With all the commonalities and differences among us, my very informal, essentially conversational "research" suggests this dream is common among the past two or three generations in the United States and other countries with educational systems that emphasize high stakes formal written tests that determine your future academic opportunities.

Other common components shared by many, but not all, of the dream havers:

• The dreams don't start before high school and may not even start until college is completed.
• The subject is one the dreamer found difficult—often math, English, or science—but the failure to attend the class was not intentional.
• Many dream the added dilemma of not being able to find the exam room or having to go to the bathroom.
• Most people wake up without ever entering the room, seeing the exam, or having any outcome, resolution, or consequence, yet with the sense that the outcome will have been quite bad.
• Most people are dressed normally, but some are in pajamas; others are nude.
• The classroom door is closed, and frequently wood, some with wired safety glass windows on the door.

Usually, there are no other people in the hall and the dreamer has no conversations with anyone.

The neuroscience research that I study, especially related to my books about child development and brain research-based education , is accumulating about the neurochemistry and the brain's electrical and metabolic states during the various phases of sleep. We now know more about dream states and the measurable electrical patterns during dreams. For example, it is rare for people not to dream; even those who don't think they dream show identifiable dream-like patterns.

During dreams, the emotional brain trumps the higher, reflective, cognitive brain. The dominant brain activity during dreams is the REM state (rapid eye movement with low voltage fast electrical activity) and the metabolic activity is higher in the emotional, involuntary, more primitive limbic system. In addition, there is decreased metabolic activity in the prefrontal cortex involved in consciously directed thoughts, planned behavior, emotional self-control , executive function (prioritizing, risk-analysis, higher cognition , judgment, and the focused alert mindful state).

There is no research I have found that offers confirmed, objective evidence about cause, effect, or statistically validated explanations for the significance of The Dream, its frequency, or the variation in details.

I offer some of the hypotheses with an invitation for you to send in your variation of the dream. If you'd like to share your hypothesis about the meaning of The Dream, why it comes when it does, or any other associated ideas, those of us who have had the dream would love to read your ideas. The good news is that as there are no definitive research conclusions, your interpretations cannot be contested—there are no wrong answers and this is not an end of semester test, so have fun sharing and reading.

Hypotheses and Interpretations (from the literature and anecdotal):

• The dream often occurs in approximation with having forgotten or being concerned about forgetting to do something important in waking life.
• The dream may reflect a sense of responsibility, duty, or choice where the dreamer knows what he should do, but is hesitant or reluctant to do the act.
• A change involving the end of something is imminent and there is low confidence about the future.
• It is a time when regrets of past actions or inactions have been in mind—a possible prompt to not "put off until tomorrow what can be done today."
• The dream, when it comes in approximation with a significant date, such as a birthday, anniversary, school reunion year, date of the death of someone significant, offers the doorway to the classroom as a metaphor to paths not taken, the recognition that a "long" time has passed without goals achieved.
• The dream is a reminder not to miss an opportunity or take a more active role in one's destiny.

When I spent a week doing presentations and enjoying time with other neuroscientists and educators in Argentina this month (September 2009), I learned that test stress is not one of their problems. If a students pass the individual classes in one educational level, they can proceed to the next level. There are end of term tests, but they do not have the "make or break" impact on a student's future options or the finances of a school. Again, my "research" was informal and anecdotal, but among the 40 people I casually questioned between ages 16 and 66, not one had any version of The Dream.

From my perspective, as a neurologist and classroom teacher with a goal of helping educators reduce the negative impact of standardized test pressure, I also wondered if U.S test pressure was influencing the frequency or age of onset of The Dream. Unfortunately, there has been evidence that such is the case as parents and teachers now report that children as young as first grade report disturbing dreams about disappointing their parents by doing poorly in school.

Not only is test pressure draining the joy from learning, robbing children of the sustained motivation of curiosity, and reducing the U.S. high school graduation rate to the lowest of any industrialized county, but when six-year-old children suffer even in their sleep, can we allow the toxic impact of test pressure to continue yet another year?

Ask your children about their dreams. Let's share our stories and use them to work with policy makers and end the nightmare test legacy of The Dream.

"Ask Dr. Judy" About Your Neuro-Education Topics

If there are topics about which would like to read more that relate to the neuroscience of learning and the brain—from my perspective as a neurologist, former classroom teacher, and current author and presenter about how the brain learns, please include your questions as blog responses with the heading of “Ask Dr Judy” questions. Although I will not be able to address specific individual questions regarding learning problems for individual children, I will try to take on the topics of highest concern and interest about the mind, the brain, and education.

My area of specialty is using the neuroscience research I read and my years of classroom experience and parenting to make suggestions that connect the research with ways to optimize education and parenting for all children to achieve the highest joyful potentials. I do not focus on individual conditions, such as autism ADHD , or dyslexia, as these deserve responses from sub-specialists. As this is a blog format, others may join in the conversation with their opinions and research that relates to the questions.

Judy Willis , M.D., is a board-certified neurologist and middle school teacher, specializing in classroom strategies derived from brain research.

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How to Survive Forgetting Your Homework at School

Last Updated: March 9, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Katie Styzek . Katie Styzek is a Professional School Counselor for Chicago Public Schools. Katie earned a BS in Elementary Education with a Concentration in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She served as a middle school mathematics, science, and social studies teacher for three years prior to becoming a counselor. She holds a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in School Counseling from DePaul University and an MA in Educational Leadership from Northeastern Illinois University. Katie holds an Illinois School Counselor Endorsement License (Type 73 Service Personnel), an Illinois Principal License (formerly Type 75), and an Illinois Elementary Education Teaching License (Type 03, K – 9). She is also Nationally Board Certified in School Counseling from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 128,435 times.

Have you ever sat down to complete your homework only to realize you left some important component (like a worksheet or textbook) at school? Don’t freak out! You have many options for getting ahold of what you need or finding a suitable replacement. If all else fails, you may be able to complete the assignment when you return to school.

Getting a Copy of a Worksheet

• If you have a scanner and printer or a copy machine, you can complete this task at home.
• Most printing places charge $0.10 for a single black and white copy.

• Be sure to use clear grammar, complete sentences, and good etiquette in your email.
• You can only use this method once or twice before your teacher will become frustrated with you.
• Your teacher may be less than pleased that you don’t have the worksheet if you’ve had an extended period of time to complete it rather than if it was assigned that day.

Finding a Textbook

• You can search an online card catalog or call the library to see if they have your book. Then go there in person and check it out.
• Sometimes the textbook may be “on reserve,” meaning you will have to work with it in the library.

• Ideally, you will want to try to find the exact same edition, but a different edition will be better than nothing. Keep in mind, though, that the chapter or worksheet may be different from the one your teacher assigned.
• If you can find out the ISBN code for your textbook, this can be a good way to search as well.

Completing the Homework Later

• If you need to get into your classroom, you can email your teacher to see if they can let you in early.

• You can work during any free period, recess, or lunch in order to get the assignment done.

• It is likely that your teacher will need to stay for a little while anyway, and they may respect your initiative to get the late assignment complete as soon as possible.

• If you have multiple email accounts, use the one associated with your school.
• Once again, use proper grammar, complete sentences, and good etiquette when you communicate with your teacher via email. [6] X Research source

• Keep in mind that if this happens more than once, your teacher may be less likely to give you an extension.

Expert Q&A

• Exchange contact info with some people from your class ahead of time so that you can contact them in a situation like this one. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• When searching for answers off the Internet, don't type in the direct question. Instead, type in key parts of the question. For example, if the question is “What was the population of Canada in 1900?" type in “Population of Canada 1900” instead of the full question. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Try making a mini bag that will carry all the supplies needed to do homework, like an extra copy of every textbook, lined paper, a ruler, a protractor, etc. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Ask a friend who's in class with you to take a quick picture of the worksheet and text or email it to you. This saves you a trip to their house or having to meet up.
• As a last resort, be honest with your teacher, explain why you don't have the assignment, and ask if you can stay late or email it to them to avoid a late grade.
• For a textbook, call the school library first to ask if they have a copy on hold. If not, search online for either an ebook version or a different edition.
• Check whether your teacher uses an online platform for assignments. If so, log in and see if the worksheet is posted there to print out.
• When emailing your teacher to ask for materials, be extra polite and use proper spelling/grammar so they're more likely to help you out.
• If you can't complete the work at home, get to school early the next morning and finish during free periods or study hall time instead.

• If you consistently forget your homework, you may get in trouble or your teacher may lose their trust in you. Thanks Helpful 8 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ Katie Styzek. Professional School Counselor. Expert Interview. 26 March 2021.
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html
• ↑ https://www2.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/homework/part8.html

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Why we can’t remember what we learn and what to do about it

Time is the enemy of memory – we naturally start forgetting almost as soon as we learn something new.

While our ability to store new information isn’t limited, our ability to access that information is limited by a variety of factors. However, a relatively easy technique has been proven to boost retention of learned materials: spaced repetition. Spaced repetition can be applied by any instructor to improve student learning outcomes in the long term [1] .

A history of forgetting

In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus became fascinated with the science of forgetting. He theorized that forgetting is related to the passage of time. Setting out to prove this theory, he threw himself into a multi-year systematized study that tracked memory decay over time.

To understand how decay worked, Ebbinghaus created 2,300 nonsense sounds ( rur , mek , hek ) and memorized these, testing himself and varying the duration and number of practice sessions. By keeping track of how many times he had to rehearse each list of words and for how long, over many years, Ebbinghaus created the forgetting curve , a graph of memory loss over time [2] . The forgetting curve shows us that we forget most of what we learn in the first day, and our memory decays over time unless we practice what we learn at intervals. Ebbinghaus kept track of how long it took him to commit his nonsense words to memory, creating an equation, later plotted as a graph [3] .

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve of nonsense words

Source: Erdelyi, M. H. (2010). The ups and downs of memory. American psychologist, 65(7), 623.

Ebbinghaus was the first to study memory by applying quantitative methods. While his study isn’t perfect, his careful measurements kicked off the study of memory using a clear methodology and did a lot to advance the field of psychology as a quantitative science. In the intervening years, other psychologists have assessed and modified his theory and worked to understand the relationship between forgetting and learning [4] .

Spaced repetition is a way of overcoming the forgetting curve

What we know. We know that multiple studies of spaced repetition (or spacing out study sessions) show that spaced repetition is a powerful way to remember something in the long term. Studies spanning grade school students to college students, using a variety of techniques – from studying word pairs to studying sophisticated biology concepts – show that students who used the spaced repetition technique outperformed students who crammed (or studied the material only once) [5] . Even in tests of transfer, in which students made inferences and applied what they learned in one setting to another, the students who took part in the spaced repetition conditions did better than those who crammed.

Most students cram for tests. It seems like the intuitive thing to do and it calls for far less planning. And cramming works, but only in the short term. Students will remember what they learned for the test the next day, but when tested a month or a year later, students who crammed will have a lot of trouble accessing the material. Since the goal of learning is to build on what you know and transfer that knowledge to new situations, students who do not use the spaced repetition technique, are placing themselves at a disadvantage.

What we don’t know. Optimal spaced repetition allows memory to decay a little bit before reactivating it through study [6] . Rather counterintuitively, some forgetting has to happen for spaced repetition to be productive. When students cram, or even use too short intervals between study sessions, their memory is still active, and restudying doesn’t activate it. However, when the intervals between practice sessions are too long, the memory cannot be retrieved [7] .

While numerous studies show the benefits of spaced repetition, there is a lot we don’t know, including the optimal gap between spaced repetition sessions. Should they increase with every interval (going from one day between sessions, to one week, to one month)? Or should they remain the same? While the general consensus is that spaced repetition schedules should involve wide spacing, we don’t know the optimal spacing for every circumstance; there is no strong evidence that one schedule of spaced repetition is better than another [8] . While the timing has yet to be optimized, spaced repetition remains one of the most powerful, and long-term learning techniques that we can easily deploy. The key is recognizing the impact of the technique and putting it into practice.

What you should do. Instructors can address the problem of the forgetting curve and take advantage of spaced repetition using a process called interleaving. Interleaving introduces spacing of topics so that topics are not just covered consecutively but make an appearance in other lessons, assignments, or tests. When you interleave your topics, students have to continually adapt to each new topic and recall what they learned in previous classes. This prompts students to both actively retrieve previously learned information and surface connections or relationships between related ideas [9] .

You can include spaced repetition in your course by interleaving what you teach:

• Time your lessons so that you cover some of one topic, move on to another, and then get back to the original material.
• Design your exams and quizzes so that they cover more than one topic or set of related materials. Let your students know that you are doing this so that they know that they should study not just one topic but multiple topics, reactivating their memory of previous lessons.
• Insert previously covered material into current lessons. This can be as simple as cold calling on students and asking them to make the connection: how does this concept connect to a previous concept?
• Design your assignments with curricular connections in mind. Ask students to connect several concepts studied and explicitly refer to earlier concepts in their assignments.

Talk to your students about the benefits of spaced repetition. Show them the forgetting curve and tell them that for long-term retention, cramming is not a good idea. Spaced repetition will allow them to access what they learned so that they can use it when it counts: on tests and at work.

For a fun and interactive look at spaced repetition, check out Nicky Case’s How to Remember Everything Forever-ish

Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society, 2(59-68).

Carey, B. (2015). How we learn: the surprising truth about when, where, and why it happens. Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Carpenter, S. K., Cepeda, N. J., Rohrer, D., Kang, S. H., & Pashler, H. (2012). Using spacing to enhance diverse forms of learning: Review of recent research and implications for instruction. Educational Psychology Review, 24(3), 369-378.

Smolen, P., Zhang, Y., & Byrne, J. H. (2016). The right time to learn: mechanisms and optimization of spaced learning. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(2), 77.

Byrne, J. H. (2017). Learning and memory: a comprehensive reference. Academic Press.

Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual review of psychology, 64, 417-444.

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I left my homework at home! How many times have you said this? It’s a terrible feeling to know you’re going to get a failing grade on homework after you actually did the work. It seems so unfair!

There are ways to prevent this dilemma and others, but you must be willing to prepare ahead of time to save yourself from future headaches. The most important thing you can do to avoid a dilemma like this is to establish a strong routine.

Once you form a strong, consistent homework pattern , you will avoid many of the big problems, like leaving a perfectly good assignment at home.

Establish a Homework Base

Does your homework have a home? Is there a special place where you always put your paperwork each night? To avoid forgetting your homework, you must establish a strong homework routine with a special homework station where you work each night.

Then you must get in the habit of putting your homework where it belongs right after you finish it, whether this is in a special folder on your desk or in your backpack.

One idea is to put the completed assignment in your backpack and leave the backpack right beside the door.

Buy a Homework Bell

This is one of those ideas that sounds silly, but it really works!

Go to a business supply store and find a counter bell, like those you see on store counters. Place this bell in the homework station and work it into your homework routine. Each night once all the homework is completed and in its proper place (like your backpack), give the bell a ring.

The ringing of the bell will let everyone know that you (and your siblings) are ready for the next school day. The bell will become a familiar sound and one that your family will recognize as an official end to homework time.

Use Your Email

Email is a great invention for writers. Each and every time you write an essay or other assignments on the computer , you should get in the habit of sending yourself a copy via email. This can be a real lifesaver!

Simply open your email as soon as you finish your document, then send yourself a copy by attachment. You’ll be able to access this assignment from anywhere. If you forget it, no problem. Just go to the library, open, and print.

Home Fax Machine

The fax machine can be another lifesaver. These contraptions have become very affordable lately, and they can come in quite handy for parents as well as students in a time of crisis. If ever you forget an assignment, you might be able to call home and have a parent or sibling fax your assignment to the school office.

It may be a good time to talk with your parents about investing in a home fax machine if you don’t have one already. It’s worth a try!

Put a Checklist by the Door

Try putting a checklist somewhere conspicuous where you and/or your parents will see it each morning. Include homework, lunch money, personal items, anything you need each day. Remember, it’s the routine that makes this work.

Be creative! You can put a checklist by the front door, or perhaps you prefer someplace more interesting. Why not place a sticky note on the back of your cereal box each time you open a new one?

• Study Habits That Can Improve Grades and Performance
• 5 Tips to Help the Disorganized Student
• 4 Tips for Completing Your Homework On Time
• Tips for Preparing for the New School Year
• Communicate With Special Education Parents
• Motivation Tips for Students
• Collecting Homework in the Classroom
• Preventing and Recovering Lost Documents
• How to Get Your Homework Done in College
• Time Management Exercise
• Organize Your Time With a Day Planner
• Effective Classroom Policies and Procedures
• Study Tips for Middle School Students
• Late Work Policy for Teachers Example
• How to Change Your Habits and Improve Your Grades
• How to Make Any Small Space Productive for Studying

Why forgetting is a normal function of memory – and when to worry

Professor of Psychology, Durham University

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Alexander Easton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Durham University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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Forgetting in our day to day lives may feel annoying or, as we get older, a little frightening. But it is an entirely normal part of memory – enabling us to move on or make space for new information.

In fact, our memories aren’t as reliable as we may think. But what level of forgetting is actually normal? Is it OK to mix up the names of countries , as US president Joe Biden recently did? Let’s take a look at the evidence.

You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa .

When we remember something , our brains need to learn it (encode), keep it safe (store) and recover it when needed (retrieve). Forgetting can occur at any point in this process.

When sensory information first comes in to the brain we can’t process it all. We instead use our attention to filter the information so that what’s important can be identified and processed. That process means that when we are encoding our experiences we are mostly encoding the things we are paying attention to.

If someone introduces themselves at a dinner party at the same time as we’re paying attention to something else, we never encode their name. It’s a failure of memory (forgetting), but it’s entirely normal and very common .

Habits and structure, such as always putting our keys in the same place so we don’t have to encode their location, can help us get around this problem.

Rehearsal is also important for memory. If we don’t use it, we lose it . Memories that last the longest are the ones we’ve rehearsed and retold many times (although we often adapt the memory with every retelling, and likely remember the last rehearsal rather than the actual event itself).

In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus taught people nonsense syllables they had never heard before, and looked at how much they remembered over time. He showed that, without rehearsal, most of our memory fades within a day or two.

However, if people rehearsed the syllables by having them repeated at regular intervals, this drastically increased the number of syllables that could be remembered for more than just a day.

This need for rehearsal can be another cause of every day forgetting, however. When we go to the supermarket we might encode where we park the car, but when we enter the shop we are busy rehearsing other things we need to remember (our shopping list). As a result, we may forget the location of the car.

However, this shows us another feature of forgetting. We can forget specific information, but remember the gist .

When we walk out of the shop and realise that we don’t remember where we parked the car, we can probably remember whether it was to the left or right of the shop door, on the edge of the car park or towards the centre though. So rather than having to walk round the entire car park to find it, we can search a relatively defined area.

The impact of ageing

As people get older, they worry about their memory more . It’s true that our forgetting becomes more pronounced, but that doesn’t always mean there’s a problem.

The longer we live, the more experiences we have, and the more we have to remember. Not only that, but the experiences have much in common, meaning it can become tricky to separate these events in our memory.

If you’ve only ever experienced a holiday on a beach in Spain once you will remember it with great clarity. However, if you’ve been on many holidays to Spain, in different cities at different times, then remembering whether something happened in the first holiday you took to Barcelona or the second, or whether your brother came with you on the holiday to Majorca or Ibiza, becomes more challenging.

Overlap between memories, or interference, gets in the way of retrieving information. Imagine filing documents on your computer. As you start the process, you have a clear filing system where you can easily place each document so you know where to find it.

But as more and more documents come in, it gets hard to decide which of the folders it belongs to. You may also start putting lots of documents in one folder because they all relate to that item.

This means that, over time, it becomes hard to retrieve the right document when you need it either because you can’t work out where you put it, or because you know where it should be but there are lots of other things there to search through.

It can be disruptive to not forget. Post traumatic stress disorder is an example of a situation in which people can not forget. The memory is persistent, doesn’t fade and often interrupts daily life.

There can be similar experiences with persistent memories in grief or depression, conditions which can make it harder to forget negative information. Here, forgetting would be extremely useful.

Forgetting doesn’t always impair decision making

So forgetting things is common, and as we get older it becomes more common. But forgetting names or dates, as Biden has, doesn’t necessarily impair decision making . Older people can have deep knowledge and good intuition , which can help counteract such memory lapses.

Of course, at times forgetting can be a sign of a bigger problem and might suggest you need to speak to the doctor. Asking the same questions over and over again is a sign that forgetting is more than just a problem of being distracted when you tried to encode it.

Similarly, forgetting your way round very familiar areas is another sign that you are struggling to use cues in the environment to remind you of how to get around. And while forgetting the name of someone at dinner is normal, forgetting how to use your fork and knife isn’t.

Ultimately, forgetting isn’t something to fear – in ourselves or others. It is usually extreme when it’s a sign things are going wrong.

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Why Your Brain Dwells on Unfinished Tasks

• Vasundhara Sawhney

And what you can do about it.

If you’ve ever wondered why unfinished tasks seem so intrusive, it’s because of a phenomena called the Zeigarnik effect.

• Failing to complete a task creates underlying cognitive tension, which is what makes you keep coming back to it. That’s why we find it easier to recall something that’s ongoing or incomplete than something that is done and over with.
• Rather than letting it be intrusive, we can actually use it to our benefit and get things done. There are four ways to make this work for you: 1) Reduce your tendency to procrastinate; 2) Get people to pay more attention to what you’re saying; 3) Memorize more information; 4) Get better with remembering tough names.

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A few months ago, a friend recommended I watch Crash Landing on You (CLOY) — a South Korean drama that has been praised around the world. I’m not a huge fan of soaps. They drag too long, force you to invest a ton of time (and emotion), and I, for one, can’t wait to find out what the end is going to be. I much prefer curling up with your traditional two-hour movie or an evening of truth with an observational documentary.

• Vasundhara Sawhney is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

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I keep leaving important work to the last minute. How can I stop procrastinating?

Procrastination isn’t a personal flaw, writes Guardian Australia’s advice columnist, and the more you treat it like one the worse it becomes

I am in high school and always find myself leaving assignments (especially important ones) to the last minute by procrastinating a lot and, as a result, not getting a great mark.

What can I do to ensure I get my work done earlier and motivate myself to get it done instead of procrastinating?

Eleanor says: A lot of people who procrastinate think they’re just failing, when actually they have a treatable mental health condition. It’s worth asking a professional about your experience. If you’re experiencing garden variety procrastination, I can tell you what’s helped mine. I’m an Olympic level procrastinator. I’ll take the toaster apart and shine its parts and put it back together before I open my emails for the day. I’ll read the footnotes to the footnotes on a Wikipedia page about the bolts they use on Boeings. I’ve seen listicles you people wouldn’t believe.

Here’s what I know.

We procrastinate because we’re trying to avoid the way that working makes us feel. It’s not because we’re lazy. If your parents or your teachers act as though you’re lazy, you can act as though they’re wrong. We do it because working makes us feel bad, bone-deep. Working out exactly which flavour of “bad” your work makes you feel will help, but the basic structure is we’re running away from a feeling by running away from work.

The things we run to have a pattern that’s well worth learning. If you can spot it – like the stripes on a poisonous snake – you’ll be able to avoid mistakes that some of your friends will spend years making. The pattern is: we run to things that promise one feeling while in fact undermining it. In procrastination, the feeling is fun. (In drinking it might be freedom; in gambling, being carefree).

We want fun instead of work, and procrastinating offers it.But the trick is, we don’t ever really get a fun day off, Ferris Bueller style. We just do endless non-work things within plausible leash-range of the computer. Then, when we surface from the bliss of self-erasure we find we have way too little time left for either work or fun.

Procrastinating accordion-crunches your time; it robs you of the hours you need to do what it actually feels fun to do.

You asked what you could do about it. There are too many wonderful resources and systems to describe in full here, but here are two basic ideas.

The first is habit. Start as small as you can. Don’t wrestle directly with big resolutions like “I’ll do all my homework every day”. Just promise yourself something small to start with: I’ll do one homework question first thing when I get home. Just one. Practice being happy with yourself for meeting that habit. A swimming coach I once knew liked to say: you’re faster than the people who didn’t turn up.

The second basic idea is calm. When work goes badly – and it sometimes will – practice responding to that matter-of-factly. So you got a bad mark, you put off something important. It happens.

We avoid things when we find them intolerable, so if you find your mistakes intolerable, you’ll avoid them, which means you’ll avoid fixing them. That can get messy. I know someone who moved country to avoid a procrastinated task. But the more you can tolerate, the less you’ll avoid. So practice tolerating the fact that you procrastinated. Say “I’ll own up to it and try again”. This might involve resisting an adult’s meanness or panic. That’s okay. You can tell them that it’s more helpful to point out what’s still fixable than to dwell on what you can’t change. And you can tell them I said to ask if they were ever late on their tax.

Try not to beat yourself up for the urge to run away from things that feel bad. You’re designed to have it – it keeps you safe. But try to have habits that keep you from running – and if you’re going to run, at least make it towards real fun.

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Do you have a conflict, crossroads or dilemma you need help with? Eleanor Gordon-Smith will help you think through life’s questions and puzzles, big and small. Questions can be anonymous.

If you’re having trouble using the form, click here . Read terms of service here

This article was amended on 11 November 2021 to include an opening sentence advising the letter-writer to discuss their concerns with a doctor.

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Practical Mama

Practical wisdom and balanced lifestyle for parents

Tips to get students remember to turn in homework

By Practical Mama | This post may contain affiliate links

Towards the end of last year, my son started to have problems with his homework. The issue was not the assignment themselves. He would complete the assignments on time, but then he would frequently forget to turn them in, which would result in reduced grades. As a parent, this was more frustrating to us than not doing the assignment itself.

We didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that our son was a scatterbrain, forgetful or even he didn’t care. We’ve tried to determine the factors causing this issue. We asked him questions every time when he forgot to turn in his homework:

• Was there a dropbox or bin that he should have turned the assignment in?
• Did the teacher ask them to bring their assignments?
• Did the teacher make announcements when they collect them?
• Did the teacher assign a student to pick the completed homework up?
• Did he notice other kids hand their assignments in at all?

Eventually, we came to the conclusion that the situation was a combination of “lack of organizing”, “varying methods of collecting the assignments by teachers” and “forgetfulness”. We started with “lack of organizing” and “forgetfulness”. We offered few alternative options of solutions he could use and he picked whatever he thought would work for him. The keyword is “simplify”. Kids have so many responsibilities and so many distractions these days, picking a suitable solution for oneself is essential. Simple solutions are the best.

Organizing is about being aware of what one has in their environment. It can be their backpack, desk or locker etc. I wasn’t the most organized student myself either. So I can relate. When you are not an inherently organized person, you need to be taught methods and given tools to function. If you or your children have “scatterbrain” or “forgetfulness” problem, organizing by sorting, grouping, ordering, and labeling is your remedy. I highly recommend you to take a look at the 5S Methodology .

Expandable Folder:  My son uses his expandable folder to keep track of his paper based homework. He organized his folder by labeling them for a specific purpose, such as “ new homework “, “ homework to turn in “, “ work in progress ” and “ graded homework ” etc. The important point though is for the student to open the folder up every day at school and at home and go through it, check appropriate sections and take action on it.

At my kids’ school, homework is posted online on Google classroom. All homework have deadlines. They needed to track when each assignment is due, not only to remember the time to turn them in but also prioritize and plan their time to do their homework on time.

Online Calendars: It’s forbidden to use cell phones at their school but laptops are widely used. We use online Google calendars for all of our scheduling but in my humble opinion, excessive use of electronics and online resources for school work cause more distraction for students. Especially, if your kids are having hard time focus as is. There is already so much use of the internet, whether it is classroom portals, online learning websites, e-mailing and messaging for classroom projects. It’s healthier to keep some of the efforts offline.

Post it notes:  You can use post-it notes on a pencil box, folder or another item that student definitely takes out of their backpacks every day. Post-it note should trigger action to turn the homework in.

Locker checklist: If the student has a locker at school, they can create a reminder note, laminate and put it up visibly in their locker. Every time, they visit their locker, they’ll see the note and make sure all their assignments handed in and all their new homework material is put in their backpack.

Final check before school dismissal : Getting into the habit of going through a checklist at the time when they are packing their backpacks before going home is a great way to work the executive functioning part of those growing brains. This can be with the help of an exact same note as the locker checklist, or merely a mental checklist:

• Did I turn in all my assignments?
• Did I put in all new assignments in my folder?
• Did I pack all necessary notebooks and books to complete my assignments?

COMMUNICATING WITH THE TEACHER

It’s also important to talk to the teachers to learn their preferred method of collecting the assignments. During the parent-teacher conferences, we talked to the teachers as well. We asked to have a standard method of turning in the assignments if they varied so that the students would know what is expected. It’s confusing for the students when one day the teachers announce to turn in the assignments, the other day they just assume the homework will be turned into a bin without making an announcement.

We also advised our son to go up to the teacher before the end of the session and ask whether he should turn in the homework if he is in doubt. It is his responsibility to let the teacher know he has completed his assignment on time and has it ready by its due date.

ONLINE HOMEWORK

Online homework is rather easier with one precaution. If homework is an online lesson, the homework is considered submitted when the lesson is complete. However, if an online document needs to be submitted, that has to go on time as well. The same organizing and reminder methods can be used. Also, some portals have check marks to notify the completion of the assignment. The student should have a final review the portal daily before closing down the homework session to make sure they checked all completed assignments as DONE.

I am happy to report that he’s currently in control of turning the assignments on time using these organizing and reminder methods.

Do you have similar issues with your children? If you use any of these methods and find helpful or use other methods which work, please share them in the comments.

You might also like:

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I haven’t tried anything yet, but I will be. These are helpful ideas. My daughter just transitioned to middle and is struggling keeping up with assignments and turning them in.

I don’t understand why teachers cannot just ask the students to turn in their homework. Why is that so hard? Even my college professors, all of them, reminded us to turn in our homework assignments.

I also think that the teachers should remind there students at the end of the day before leaving the classroom to remember all there home work, especially for those students that have problems remembering homework, even before middle school years,to help them start making it a habit.

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• EXPLORE Random Article

How to Remember to Turn in Homework

Last Updated: November 29, 2021

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a private tutor in San Carlos, California. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. This article has been viewed 50,191 times.

You’ve had enough of that soul-crushing stare your teachers hit you with when they find out you forgot your homework again. They silently shake their head as you tell them you finished it, and even enjoyed working on the assignment, but simply left it at home. Even worse, you get home and realize you had brought your homework to class but forgot to turn it in! Again! Fortunately, there are proven steps you can take to help you remember to turn in your homework.

Organizing to Boost Your Productivity

• There is the classic two pocket, a side-folding folder in any color you can imagine, or adorned with the comic book hero, cartoon character, or sports team of your choice. One option is to get a few of these and use one for each of your classes.
• If you have separate folders for each class, keep all of them with you throughout the school day, perhaps in a three-ring binder.
• Alternatively, get yourself an accordion folder. These multi-pocketed wonders, usually equipped with a flap or other mechanism to ensure your materials stay where you put them, can immediately improve your organization. [1] X Research source
• Take time twice a week to organize all your folders or online files. This way they’re kept clean on a regular basis.

• Put any notes, handouts, worksheets, or assignment materials into the proper folder location as soon as you receive them, and keep them there whenever you’re not using them.
• Keep your organizing materials with you. Bring your binder or accordion with you to every single class. This ensures you always have all of your assignments with you for every class.
• For some extra tips, check out How to Be Organized in School.

• Before school every morning, triple check your bag! There’s nothing worse than simply forgetting completed homework at home. Make sure you have your organizing materials with you, and that you placed you completed assignments in them.

Developing Strategies to Remember Your Homework

• As soon as you sit down, take your completed assignment out of its folder and place in on your desk in front of you. Keep it there until you are able to turn it in.
• Get an extra folder exclusively for completed assignments and keep it in the very front of your binder. This way, you’ll be reminded of your completed assignments whenever you access any of your class materials.

• Always write down all of your homework assignments as soon as you are made aware of them. Be extremely detailed with the information you include. For example, jot down the chapters or page numbers of the textbooks or other materials associated with each assignment.
• If your class has a syllabus or course schedule, enter all of the included due dates into your personal planner.
• Include information regarding time slots you will not be able to work on homework, such as music or sports team practices, a babysitting gig, or family meals.

• Tangible planners are easier to update with quick additions or edits.
• It’s always satisfying to cross a completed assignment off with an actual writing utensil.
• Day planners are more appropriate for in-class use. Since you’ll often be assigned homework in class, and want to enter new assignments immediately, this is a particularly important factor.

• Another great source of reminders is your teacher. If you struggle to remember to bring your homework to class, talk to your teacher about it. Your teachers will likely have some helpful advice, and can even remind you the day before homework assignments are due.
• Your teachers will likely remind the whole class if you ask them to start reminding you, which may help your classmates remember their homework too!
• Alternatively, find a friend who will be sure to hold you accountable and remind you what needs to be done.

Using Your Time More Efficiently

• Think about how long it will take you to complete assignments and plan accordingly.
• Schedule specific portions of larger projects separately.
• If you struggle with finding large enough time slots to complete your homework, recognize that you need to make the time to do so. For instance, if you spend a good portion of each evening socializing with friends (online or in person), do all of your homework before you go out or get online.

• Kick starting your day will increase your productivity generally and prepare you for more efficient homework sessions. [2] X Research source
• Stick with it. If you get in the habit of getting up a bit earlier, you’ll likely start going to bed earlier as well.
• Don’t fall into the trap of staying up late working on homework, as your focus and productivity is greatly diminished late at night.
• Don’t procrastinate your homework and try to finish it when you wake up in the morning. It will make your day more stressful and ruin your previous night’s sleep.

• Wear headphones and sit facing a wall if you’re prone to visual distraction.
• Remind yourself that getting your homework done during school hours allows you to do whatever you want in your free time, including hang out with friends.

• If you are ever unsure of an assignment, ask your teacher about it as soon as you have a question.
• Get a jumpstart on weekend homework on Thursday or Friday. If you know you’re going to need to do some homework over the weekend, try to get it done earlier so you can relax and enjoy yourself over the weekend as well.
• Do not leave all of your weekend homework for Sunday.
• Try to plan weekend social activities for Saturday, and dedicate at least a few hours of Friday evening to schoolwork. If you do end up with plans on a Friday night, make sure you set aside a few hours on Saturday to work on homework.

Staying Focused on Your Homework

• Try studying in different environments to find the one that allows you to focus the best.
• Avoid screens, especially TVs. This includes your phone. Put your phone in your bag and leave it there. Only check it during scheduled breaks.
• Wear headphones (or earplugs). Whether in a library or coffee shop, headphones will help reduce the frequency of auditory distractions. Choose music that does not have lyrics, and is more ambient than bass-driven. Think “background music” when you’re making your selection, but know that you can still listen to music you enjoy.
• If you’re studying at home, try to use a room in which you won’t be interrupted by family members or roommates. Let others know you intend to work on homework for a certain amount of time, and ask them to let you be.

• The company of a friend can keep you from wondering what everybody else is up to, and can even make doing your homework feel like hanging out.
• Avoid studying with friends who tend to interrupt a lot, or who have trouble focusing themselves. You can hang with whoever you want once your work is done!

• Include a healthy snack, as well as a water bottle. Not having to get up for sustenance will keep you grinding through your homework for a longer period of time.
• Don’t forget sticky notes. They’re weirdly helpful. Use them as visual reminders of important things to remember, and to keep pages in books you’re studying or otherwise referencing frequently.

• Computers can also help you organize. Familiarize yourself with web-based storage systems like Google Drive and Dropbox. These will allow you to save and access files from anywhere you have internet access. [3] X Research source
• Use a flash drive too. Save all electronic files to both a web-based storage system and a thumb drive. Keep the drive with you at all times. (Get a thumb drive with a keychain attachment!) This way, even if you forget your hard copy, you can print another at school and eliminate the unfortunate “I forgot my homework” scenario.

• Try a 10 minute break after every 50 minutes of focused work.
• Use these breaks to go for a short walk, use the washroom, do a brief physical exercise (like stretching, push-ups, or jumping jacks), or to get a simple chore out of the way.
• Do not allow yourself to get distracted by activities that will prevent you from going back to work or will get your mind out of study mode. For instance, don’t call someone you haven’t spoken with in a while or sit down with friends who are hanging out but not studying.
• Reward yourself when completing assignments – but not before. If you’ve been itching for a bowl of ice cream, don’t dive into the freezer during a break. Instead, enjoy the ice cream once your homework is done for the evening and you can focus all of your attention – or none at all – on every bite.

Community Q&A

• If you’re doing your best to organize, plan, and focus on your homework, but are still struggling to get it all done, talk to a school counselor or your parents. School counselors, in particular, are trained to help students, and they will be happy to work with you on strategies and options to improve your ability to succeed in school. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

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If you consider the executive function skills involved in completing assignments under typical circumstances, the student must pay attention in class when tasks or directions are provided. In many instances, teachers post assignments in a school portal as well, or expect students to look there without mentioning them during class. In either situation, the student has to take the steps to follow through in opening up the portal itself, sifting through what is likely a lot of visual information to process, and finding the right place where the assignments are listed.

In some portals, kids have to view tasks only by class. Clicking through six classes’ worth of assignments can be time-consuming and lead to students not following through in viewing everything. Or they may accidentally skip over assignments. Once the students identify what assignments they have to complete, their next challenge often becomes either writing down the assignment somewhere, continuing to go back to the portal to view it, or effectively holding the task in their memory until it is completed (which is often not the best strategy to use anyway).

Assuming your child or teen knows what assignments they need to complete, getting started is sometimes one of the hardest tasks involved in doing homework. Procrastination, not setting aside homework time, avoidance of tasks they perceive as difficult or as tough, or not being sure how to get started, complicate the student’s ability to get moving on completing assignments. Other key issues along the way include getting distracted and stopping, forgetting to go back and finish assignments later, and even completing the assignments but forgetting to submit them online or in-person.

Needless to say, under typical circumstances, these issues can significantly impede a student’s ability to complete assignments, especially when ADHD symptoms interfere. With the COVID-19 pandemic, changing schedules, inconsistencies in expectations, more flexibility with due dates anxiety about pandemic-related issues, social isolation, and many other aspects of the situation exacerbated pre-existing issues with school. Additionally, the pandemic led to increased reliance on executive function skills. At times these skills were taxed to the limit, especially as students had to keep track of classwork and homework assignments that were not completed and submitted in-person.

Nevertheless, by identifying and implementing specific strategies, students can take better control over tracking and completing their assignments, during and beyond the current pandemic.

Whatever the situation might be as schools reopen this fall, here are some practical strategies and tools that you can customize to meet the needs of your own child or teen. As the next school year approaches, we hope that these will help your student get off to a good start by more effectively keeping track of and completing their assignments.

1 Help your student to develop a solid system for tracking assignments such as a planner or calendar. A student cannot complete assignments if they do not know which ones they are expected to complete. For some students, an online portal may serve as this resource if it is accurate 100% of the time. For some students, though, it can be helpful to keep a complete list of all tasks separately from an automated portal, because it gives them the ability to view all tasks in a format they are comfortable with.

A few ideas for a comprehensive list of assignments include:

• Added to an electronic calendar such as Google or Apple Calendar. Many homework portals allow students to sync assignments to an electronic calendar so they do not have to add assignments themselves unless tasks are not already added by teachers.
• Typed in a Google Doc.
• Recorded in an electronic homework planner such as MyHomework or My Study Life.
• Added to an electronic task list such as Google Tasks or Todoist.
• Written out by hand in a paper planner or in a notebook designated for this purpose.

2 Help your student create a realistic daily and weekly plan. Once students have a clear understanding of their assignments, it is often helpful if they map out a plan and put it in a visual format instead of just in their head. A parent may need to assist them with this. This includes breaking down larger assignments into parts or chunks.

Other ideas related to making a plan include:

• List assignments due today or tomorrow first.
• Add other assignments or parts of assignments that would make sense to work on or complete.
• Estimate completion time for assignments.

3 Help your child or teen master some basic principles of planning. This can make the difference between the student’s using a system or feeling like no system is actually going to work. Here are a few of the more common and important principles of planning:

• Estimate completion times. This is important because otherwise if one makes a plan and it is not realistic, it will be impossible to follow it in the time available for completing assignments. This pattern also often fuels the notion that plans don’t work.
• Having flexibility is important. While trying to stick to a plan, also recognizing that sometimes things take longer than planned, unexpected assignments come up, or events occur that impede homework time, and managing these items so as not to completely derail a plan is often vital to its success.
• Block out specific time for homework in general. If a student simply tries to fill some of the time available between school and afterschool activities, they may end up with enough time allotted for homework if they can motivate themselves to get started soon enough in the day. Alternatively, without allotting specific time to do homework, planning is more difficult, and a student is less likely to get assigned work completed on time.

4 Setting up an ideal workspace is important for completing schoolwork and homework assignments . If the student can have a space solely dedicated to schoolwork, that often helps maintain the school mindset. Other ideas related to this include:

• Use noise-cancelling headphones or a white noise machine if there are unavoidable distracting sounds.
• Minimize electronic distractions. Keep phone away from the student’s work area and use electronic programs to block access to websites and games that can be tempting to access during school or study time (such as Freedom, Cold Turkey, Forrest).
• Harness fidgeting by using items such as a wobble cushion/chair, yoga ball chair, desk bike or elliptical, kick bands, hand fidgets, or other items that can be used mindlessly without taking visual focus away from the tasks at hand.

5 Use available notification systems and tools to get the reminders your student needs for successfully completing and turning in assignments. Some ideas include:

• Google Calendar
• Alexa, Google Home, or another personal assistant
• Time Timer for visualizing time remaining

Carey A. Heller, PsyD , is a licensed psychologist based in Maryland. He specializes in the evaluation and treatment of ADHD and executive function issues. Learn more at hellerpsychologygroup.com . The coordinator for the Montgomery County chapter of CHADD, Dr. Heller also serves as co-chair of the editorial advisory board for Attention magazine.

Other articles in this edition.

I-PCIT: When Help Is Needed Now

Small Talk Is Painful

ADHD and Healthy Lifestyle Behavior

Coping with and Recovering from the Pandemic: Key School Issues for Kids with ADHD

Calling All Students, We Need You!

The Gender Myths (Or “Only Boys Have ADHD”)

The Myth of ADHD Overdiagnosis

The Parent As If They Are Younger Myth

“If This Is Supposed to Be Easy, Why Is It So Hard?”

Angels & Demons

What a Difference a Year Makes: The 2021 Conference on ADHD

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Forgetfulness

• Risk Factors

When to See a Healthcare Provider

Frequently asked questions.

Forgetfulness is a normal part of life, and it’s common to grow more forgetful as you age. Still, it can be scary and make you concerned about developing Alzheimer’s disease , a progressive neurological condition associated with memory loss.

Rest assured that most people get more forgetful over time and do not have Alzheimer’s. Many other conditions can cause forgetfulness as well.

This article will explore the symptoms and causes of forgetfulness and how it's diagnosed and treated. 

Twenty47studio / Getty Images

Symptoms of Forgetfulness

Problems with memory, thinking, or attention can appear as forgetfulness. Signs that you may have a diagnosable problem include:

• Trouble remembering details like dates or names
• Being disoriented (not knowing where you are)
• Feeling like your brain is “foggy”
• Getting easily confused
• Processing new information slowly
• Difficulty understanding things
• Inability to make decisions or think things through
• Difficulties with normally simple tasks, such as coming up with a common word
• Reduced ability to multitask

Anyone can experience these things on occasion. It’s when they start happening more often or become more severe that you need to take notice.

Forgetfulness can involve short-term memory and/or long-term memory loss, as follows:

• Short-term memory loss : This includes lapses in recent information, such as instructions for a simple task (like a recipe) or why you walked into a room, that can last for a few seconds to a few days.
• Long-term memory loss : This memory loss includes lapses in childhood memories and practiced procedures (e.g., driving a car, brushing your teeth) and may last for decades.

Causes of Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness has several potential causes, including:  

• Lifestyle factors
• Medical conditions
• Medications

How Does Aging Increase Forgetfulness?

Your brain undergoes physical changes as you get older. Some of these changes can impact your memory, including:  

• Deterioration of the hippocampus (a brain region involved in forming and retrieving memories)
• Declining hormones and proteins that protect, repair, and stimulate the growth of brain cells
• Decreased blood flow to the brain, which can cause cognitive and memory impairments
• Loss of gray matter (the tissue of the brain)

These changes can impact your cognitive function in many ways, including causing forgetfulness. Normal age-related forgetfulness involves things like:  

• Occasionally forgetting where you left common objects (phone, keys, glasses, etc.)
• Forgetting someone’s name or calling them by someone else’s name
• Occasionally forgetting appointments
• Entering a room and forgetting why you went in there
• Becoming easily distracted
• Forgetting what you just read or heard someone say
• The feeling of having information “on the tip of your tongue” but being unable to retrieve it
• Taking longer to learn new things

Cognitive changes that don’t have a major impact on your ability to function are common.

What Lifestyle Factors Can Cause Forgetfulness?

Several aspects of your life can affect your cognitive health and forgetfulness. These include:

• Inadequate sleep : Studies suggest sleeping for an average of seven hours a day may help maintain a healthy memory later in life.
• Heavy alcohol use : Alcohol can shrink the hippocampus, which is critical to memory, and affect both short-term and long-term memory.
• Stress : Psychological stress can interfere with forming new memories and recalling older ones.
• Poor diet : Studies suggest diets high in cholesterol and fat may cause Alzheimer’s-like damage to the brain. A Mediterranean diet, which includes many servings of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and extra-virgin olive oil, has been linked to lower rates of dementia.
• Grief : Processing traumatic events changes the balance of brain function in ways that impair memory, decision-making, attention, and information processing.

While you may not be able to eliminate grief and stress from your life, other lifestyle factors are changeable.

What Medical Conditions Can Cause Forgetfulness?

A wide range of medical conditions can lead to forgetfulness and other cognitive changes. These include both physical and mental health disorders.

These degenerative neurological disorders are linked to forgetfulness and dementia: 

• Alzheimer’s disease : The most common cause of dementia, Alzheimer’s targets brain areas that control thought, memory, and language.
• Parkinson’s disease : Parkinson’s is a neurological movement disorder that may eventually progress to include forgetfulness and dementia.
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) : ALS affects nerve cells. It first causes muscle and movement symptoms, then progresses to forgetfulness, other cognitive problems, and sometimes dementia.

Other neurological conditions with forgetfulness as a symptom include:

• Brain tumors : Tumors may cause forgetfulness and problems with thinking, reasoning, concentration, and language skills.
• Blood clots in the brain : Blood clots block the flow of blood to brain tissue, which can lead to cognitive impairments known as vascular dementia.
• Brain infections : Infections such as Lyme disease , human immunodeficiency virus ( HIV ), and syphilis can damage the brain, causing forgetfulness and especially short-term memory loss.
• Fibromyalgia : This neurological pain condition involves “ fibro fog ”—a set of cognitive symptoms that include forgetfulness and word-finding difficulties.
• Myalgic encephalomyelitis /chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) : Similar to fibromyalgia, ME/CFS causes cognitive dysfunction featuring forgetfulness. It may become worse after physical exertion.
• ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder): The brains of people with this condition have deficits in how they store and retrieve memories, resulting in forgetfulness.
• Concussion /head trauma : Blows to the head often cause forgetfulness, often involving an inability to remember the events surrounding the injury.
• Stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) : Brain damage from strokes or TIAs (ministrokes) can cause forgetfulness, especially short-term memory loss.

Some medical conditions linked to forgetfulness are:

• Some autoimmune diseases : Lupus and other autoimmune diseases can cause forgetfulness and other cognitive problems.
• Hypothyroidism : Low thyroid activity alters energy metabolism in the brain, resulting in cognitive dysfunction, including forgetfulness.
• Some kidney disorders : Kidney disease and dementia both involve small blood cell abnormalities, which may explain why kidney disorders sometimes cause forgetfulness and dementia.
• Liver disorders : Liver disease can lead to a condition called hepatic encephalopathy (HE) , which causes memory loss and other cognitive problems.
• Pregnancy : Sometimes called pregnancy brain, cognitive problems, including memory deficits, are common during pregnancy.

Mental health conditions can cause forgetfulness as well. These are generally believed to be because of physical changes in the brain that interfere with concentration and short-term memory.

Forgetfulness is common in:

• Bipolar disorder
• Schizophrenia

What Medications Can Cause Forgetfulness?

Some prescription medications can cause forgetfulness, especially those that affect brain function or chemistry. Medications that may lead to forgetfulness include:

• Antidepressants : Paxil (paroxetine), Elavil (amitriptyline), Norpramin (desipramine), Aventyl/Pamelor (nortriptyline)
• H2 blocker/antacid : Tagamet (cimetidine)
• Anticholinergics / antispasmodics : Ditropan (oxybutynin), Detrol/Detrusitol (tolterodine) 
• Cold and allergy drugs : Dimetapp (brompheniramine), Chlor-Trimeton (chlorpheniramine), Benadryl (diphenhydramine)
• Chemotherapy drugs : Cyclophosphamide, fluorouracil, methotrexate

How to Treat Forgetfulness

The right treatment for your forgetfulness depends on what’s causing it. Talk to your healthcare provider about the right approach for you. This may involve:

• Improving your diet and overall fitness
• Lowering or better managing stress
• Improving sleep hygiene and/or prescribing sleep aids
• Treating previously undiagnosed conditions
• More aggressively treating conditions that still cause cognitive problems
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help with recovery from head trauma
• Changing medications that cause memory problems
• Taking nutritional supplements that boost brain health, such as omega-3 fatty acids

To keep your brain healthy and functioning well, you can also try:

• Maintaining social connections
• Taking classes or learning new skills
• Watching documentaries
• Reading books or articles about new topics
• Visiting new places to stimulate your senses
• Eating unfamiliar foods
• Focusing on heart health so your brain gets a steady supply of blood and oxygen

Risk Factors for Forgetfulness

Risk factors for forgetfulness and memory problems include:

• Family history of these problems
• Lower education level
• History of head injury
• Use of alcohol or recreational drugs
• Untreated chronic medical conditions
• Vision or hearing impairment
• High levels of psychological stress

If you have some risk factors, you may want to pay special attention to forgetfulness and other cognitive symptoms.

Are There Tests To Diagnose the Cause of Forgetfulness?

Your healthcare provider has several tools for diagnosing the cause of your forgetfulness. These include:

• Your symptoms
• Your personal and family history
• A physical exam
• Blood tests for various conditions
• Neurological evaluation (assess speech, senses, spatial skills, and reflexes)
• Cognitive evaluation (tests memory, attention, and recall)
• Neuropsychological evaluation (tests memory, concentration, orientation in time and place)
• Psychometric testing (tests speed, accuracy, and quality of mental processes)
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain
• Positron-emission tomography (PET) scan of the brain

They may also want to talk to close family members and friends about things they’ve noticed that you may be unaware of.

You should see a healthcare provider for forgetfulness if it interferes with daily tasks and routines. In older people, if it doesn’t interfere, it’s considered normal aging.

Reach out to your healthcare provider for an appointment if:

• You’re too young for age-related forgetfulness but notice it’s becoming a problem.
• You have other symptoms that suggest a medical condition.
• Your forgetfulness is concerning you or someone close to you.

Forgetfulness is a normal part of aging. However, it can also be caused by lifestyle factors, medical conditions (not just Alzheimer’s), and certain medications.

Treatment for memory problems depends on what is causing them. It may include medications or lifestyle changes.

Your healthcare provider may use an array of tests to pinpoint the cause of your cognitive changes.

A Word From Verywell

Forgetfulness can be frustrating, embarrassing, and frightening. However, mild forgetfulness is a normal part of aging. If you’re concerned, see your healthcare provider and ask about testing.

While forgetfulness has many causes, a major one is lack of sleep. Improving your sleep habits may help you be less forgetful.

If you’re forgetting things that you used to easily remember—like your street address or someone’s name—you should see your healthcare provider.

If you occasionally forget where you put your keys or why you walked into a room, that is not typically a cause for concern.

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Shen J, Li J, Hua Y, et al. Association between the erythrocyte membrane fatty acid profile and cognitive function in the overweight and obese population aged from 45 - 75 years old . Nutrients . 2022;14(4):914. Published 2022 Feb 21. doi:10.3390/nu14040914

Harvard University Medical School, Harvard Health Publishing. Boost your memory by eating right .

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Galvez-Sánchez CM, Reyes Del Paso GA, Duschek S. Cognitive impairments in fibromyalgia syndrome: Associations with positive and negative affect, alexithymia, pain catastrophizing and self-esteem . Front Psychol . 2018;9:377. Published 2018 Mar 22. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00377

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: Symptoms .

Lenartowicz A, Truong H, Salgari GC, et al. Alpha modulation during working memory encoding predicts neurocognitive impairment in ADHD . J Child Psychol Psychiatry . 2019;60(8):917-926. doi:10.1111/jcpp.13042

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Głombik K, Detka J, Kurek A, Budziszewska B. Impaired brain energy metabolism: Involvement in depression and hypothyroidism . Front Neurosci . 2020;14:586939. Published 2020 Dec 4. doi:10.3389/fnins.2020.586939

National Kidney Foundation. Kidney disease linked to dementia .

Swaminathan M, Ellul MA, Cross TJ. Hepatic encephalopathy: Current challenges and future prospects . Hepat Med . 2018;10:1–11. Published 2018 Mar 22. doi:10.2147/HMER.S118964

Barda G, Mizrachi Y, Borokchovich I, Yair L, Kertesz DP, Dabby R. The effect of pregnancy on maternal cognition . Sci Rep . 2021;11(1):12187. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-91504-9

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By Adrienne Dellwo Dellwo was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2006 and has over 25 years of experience in health research and writing.

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Ask ADDitude: Am I Asking for Too Much From My Child’s Teachers?

“what’s the line between normal kid behavior and adhd forgetfulness is it appropriate to ask the teachers to remind my son to turn in his completed work or to email me when he doesn’t i know the world won’t be accommodating when he grows up, but he’s still learning.”.

ADDitude Answers

Many parents of children with ADHD wonder about this. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer because each child is different. Forgetting to hand in homework is a common behavior in children with ADHD. I’d set up a time to talk to his teachers and explain that, while you want to teach your son to be responsible, you also have to accept this as ADHD behavior. Ask the teachers to work with you on setting goals for handing in homework-remembering to do so, say, three times a week. The teachers can e-mail you to let you know whether your child reached the goal. Once he does, you can raise the goal. Your child’s teachers might be more willing to help when you are working together toward a common goal.

Posted by Eileen Bailey Freelance writer, author specializing in ADHD, anxiety, and autism

It sounds like he is struggling with executive functions (planning, organization, and memory). Many with ADHD do. Since the behaviors (not turning in assignments and signed communications) are a direct result of a disability, punishment is unacceptable.

My son is also in 7th grade. His teachers got tired of my constant reminding that they need to help him with planning and organization (even though it’s in his IEP), so they said they would just give him silent lunch every time he wasn’t prepared from then on. My head almost started spinning around backwards! I quickly reminded them that punishing a child for behavior related to a disability is inexcusable, and a violation of my son’s civil rights under federal law .

Plus, all the discipline in the world isn’t going to change the brains these kids were born with. What they need is help creating routines and habits and tools to work around these types of issues – they aren’t going away.

Definitely meet with the principal and ask for a 504 Plan or even evaluation for services and an IEP. Also, ask that a plan be drafted and implemented with all his teachers right away to help him with these needs.

Posted by Penny ADDitude community moderator, author on ADHD parenting, mom to teen boy with ADHD, LDs, and autism

[ Free Download: Common Executive Function Challenges — and Solutions ]

A Reader Answers

Make an appointment with the principal. Bring your son’s 504 Plan (if he has one) with you. Ask for a meeting to be held with the Case Manager and your child’s teachers. Bring a letter to read that tells about your son and his past – as well as his future. Discuss what can be done to help your son do well in school. The biggest mistake you could make would be not going up to school and try to get the train back on track. Talk to the principal and teachers and give them your email, cell number and other contact info. Work with them and they will work with you. Then you can work with your son. Remember, this is hard on him too. Start to monitor him more. Contact the teachers more often. See if your son’s school offers online grading. Look at his grades daily. Your son can be successful, but only if you are willing to stay behind him.

Posted by Bensonadvocates

My son is 15 and does very well in school. He has always had a problem with turning in his assignments and projects. Executive function is lacking and it absolutely effects his follow-through. We’ve tried therapy, meds, you name it, but it didn’t help. What does help are constant reminders. I’m an ADHD adult and I have reminders for EVERYTHING. I’ve gotten my boy an iPhone so he can use the reminder apps, keep track of what’s due, etc. It’s more work for you, but you may want to try to sit with him every evening and talk about what’s due and if you can, set reminders for the next day. That has worked better than anything else for my son and me.

I hope that was helpful!

Posted by tmc

So my son has the exact same issue, among others. In middle school, he was in a public charter, and I was moderately successful getting teachers to implement a broad “ask” strategy for the entire class; they always pushed back on any strategy targeted specifically towards my son. So try that. In fact, two of his teachers then reported higher rates of homework completion for the entire class! Other teachers just didn’t care and felt like he should be able to do it on his own. If he has an IEP or a 504, ask for a phone reminder accommodation so he can have an alarm, without worrying about having his phone taken. Also try something called the WatchMinder, a programmable wrist watch that can vibrate with a reminder.

Posted by LA302

[ What I Wish My Son’s Teachers Knew About Him and ADHD ]

First of all, if you have an IEP or a 504, you need to change it to read “Teachers will check agenda daily and rewrite/clarify as necessary.” Making the child responsible for bringing it to the teacher defeats the whole purpose of the accommodation. You are trying to accommodate his executive function disability.

Another suggestion is a digital agenda so the teachers can enter assignments from their end without drawing attention to the child. My son turned 12 in September. We use one binder, with a folder for each class in the binder. Each folder has one side labeled “today’s homework.” He puts new assignments there and when finished he puts them back in that pocket. It makes it easy to remember. The other pocket is for other papers for class. Once a week, the binder is updated (old papers removed and filed at home, etc). Submitting papers online can work too. My son does this often and his teachers print them on their end. They also scan papers in and send them to him so he has them at home. An extra set of books for home leaves less to organize as well.

Just a couple suggestions for a problem we struggle with daily. Good luck!

Posted by Peacfldove

My son had the same complaints. It’s a bit of a trial and error situation sometimes!

As far as what’s “developmentally appropriate,” anybody worth their salt knows that what is “developmentally appropriate” for the average child is not necessarily so for one with ADHD! Anyway, isn’t that what the “I” in IEP is for? You’re not worrying about what’s developmentally appropriate – you’re concern is what’s appropriate for YOUR child, and for him to have free and appropriate access to his education, he needs to have accommodations that suit HIS needs!

CHADD asserts that kids with ADHD lag as much as 30 percent behind their peers developmentally. Moreover, by definition, the executive function challenges associated with ADHD very often result in significant impairment areas of planning and organization. When these areas are impaired and not accommodated properly in school, he is unable to perform in a way that is commensurate with his ability!

Sorry. This stuff makes me crazy sometimes! Don’t let it go. You can handle it calmly and reasonably, but I would keep requesting meetings politely until you get your point across and they agree! There were a couple years in middle school that the school didn’t have extra books to send physical copies home with my son (his grade is unusually large and requires extra teachers to be brought on each year as they move up), so the school gave us access to online & CD textbooks at home. No biggie, they just had to be a little creative to accommodate his needs! Your son’s school can do the same.

Hang in there and keep us posted!

Posted by ADD_Coach_Lynne

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Why Do I Keep Forgetting Things? Is My Brain Blip Something Else? Experts Weigh In

Experts share what’s normal and when you should be concerned.

If you’re in the stage we delicately call “midlife,” you may be nodding in recognition. Scientists sometimes refer to this—when you can’t quite remember a name or word that used to be easy to retrieve—as the “ tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon .” As you get older, these brain blips can happen more and more often, along with things like misplacing your phone three times in one day and opening the pantry door only to completely forget what you needed. (By the way, the answers to the above mysteries are Jennifer Coolidge , on the shelf next to the toilet, and paprika.)

We jokingly call these blips “senior moments,” but behind the self-deprecating humor there may be a slight shiver of dread: Is this normal aging, or is it an early sign of dementia? With more than 6 million Americans currently living with Alzheimer’s (a number that’s expected to nearly double in the next few decades as the population ages), this is not an unreasonable fear, and in a large national poll by the University of Michigan , 44% of people between ages 50 and 64 admitted that they were worried about developing dementia.

But—deep breath—most of these slips are perfectly harmless, and in fact there are many things other than dementia (things you can actually change and improve!) that could be putting a damper on your memory. Here’s what’s likely going on and what you can do about it.

The incredible shrinking brain

First, let’s make it clear — if Jennifer Coolidge used to be your favorite actress but now her name doesn’t ring a bell, that would be reason for concern. But if you remembered the name as soon as you read it, or if another name you couldn’t come up with suddenly pops into your head as you’re brushing your teeth an hour later, you’re probably just fine. Here’s why: After growing at a furious pace for the first couple of decades of your life, your brain reverses course and starts to shrink when you hit your 30s and 40s, says Elise Caccappolo, Ph.D. , a neuropsychologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. “When you’re a child, your brain is constantly creating new neural connections, and by age 25, it should be fully developed,” she says. About a decade after that, in a very natural process, it slowly starts to lose volume and brain cells start dying off.

The first part of the brain to start shrinking is the frontal lobe. “This is where we house our short-term or working memory, sort of a scratch pad for the brain,” says Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., a brain health researcher and an adviser to Souvenaid. Newly learned names, dates we haven’t yet put on the calendar, and the location of our keys all get temporarily deposited here before being transferred to long-term memory. “You’re less likely to have age-related memory loss for well-rehearsed information such as directions to familiar places, how to use familiar gadgets, or the name of a school you went to,” Dr. Doraiswamy adds. Caccappolo explains that this volume loss also affects processing speed. “This is why it may take a minute longer to come up with a name or a word, or it may take longer to solve a problem,” she says, stressing that you still can do these things—you just do them at a slower pace.

Another reason your brain may not be quite as quick when you’re in your 50s or 60s: You have a lot going on as you balance young-adult children, aging parents, work, and home life, says Thomas Holland, M.D. , a physician scientist at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging . “I have misplaced or lost a fair number of sunglasses throughout my life just because I have been distracted,” he notes. “That being said, from a normal cognitive age perspective, we are generally going to see a bit of decline in our cognitive abilities as we get into our older years.”

The flip side of slower processing and weaker short-term memory is that as you age you develop a larger reserve of wisdom, says Brenna Renn, Ph.D. , an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas . “The longer you live, the more facts you’ve built up, and that sort of intelligence tends to stay pretty well preserved and actually improves with age.”

It’s still important to know which kinds of memory changes are in fact worrisome signs. But the key thing to recognize about the normal shifts that come with aging is that “you can live your life as you always have, you can function independently, and it doesn’t affect what you do on a daily basis,” Caccappolo explains.

Memory zapping lifestyle issues

The brain is part of a vast interconnected system of organs, and the way you treat your body is reflected in how well your brain works. If you’re concerned about memory, your first step should be a head-to-toe wellness check. Infections such as UTIs can cause brain fog, especially in elderly people; plus, whatever is good for the heart is good for the brain. Keeping blood vessels clear and blood flowing freely helps maximize the oxygen and nutrients flowing to and nourishing the brain. Exercising, quitting smoking, maintaining a stable weight, and working with your health team to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes will keep your brain healthier too.

Ask yourself these six questions to see if your lifestyle may be causing foggy moments:

1. What medications am I on?

It’s crucial to go over your list of meds with your doctor, since many common drugs can affect cognition and memory; if you take several, they may be interacting with one another. “Tell your provider everything you take, even if it’s over-the-counter or a supplement you think is harmless,” advises Renn. Your doctor may be able to suggest alternatives, or the two of you can weigh the importance of certain drugs against how the side effects change your quality of life. Some drugs that may affect memory include:

Benzodiazepines

Prescribed for anxiety and seizure disorders , meds such as Xanax, Klonopin, and Valium can affect memory transfer from short-term to long-term storage.

Used to help control cholesterol levels, these may also reduce the brain’s levels of lipids, which are necessary for the creation of synapses that allow brain cells to communicate with one another.

Anti-seizure medications

These include gabapentin (which is often prescribed for pain management), Lyrica , and Depakote . They limit seizures by dampening the flow of signals in the central nervous system.

Beta blockers

These slow heart rate and lower blood pressure and are prescribed for several heart conditions. But they may also block chemical messengers in the brain.

Tricyclic antidepressants

Though these have mainly been replaced by SSRIs, they are still around and can block the action of neurotransmitters that are important for memory.

Many risks of taking narcotics such as OxyContin are well established; using them long-term can also interfere with memory .

Sleeping pills

A certain class of sleep aids, including Ambien and Lunesta , can have side effects similar to those from benzodiazepines.

2. Am I depressed or anxious?

Depression and anxiety are the biggest culprits in forgetfulness for people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, says Caccappolo. “Depression takes up a lot of real estate in your brain,” she explains. “When you’re depressed, your brain is not working at 100%. It’s not paying attention to things as well as it usually does, and the memory areas are not doing what they usually do, such as encoding and consolidating information.”

Dr. Holland adds that stress itself is a low-level chronic inflammatory state. “If you’re constantly under stress, your body is always in a state of readiness, dumping hormones into your blood that can keep you on edge,” he says. In the long term, unregulated inflammation can cause cellular damage across the body, he says, “and if that’s happening in the brain, we’re potentially going to see declines in cognitive function.”

According to a report by researchers at Harvard Medical School , people who are depressed typically experience more brain shrinkage, have worse recollection, and are better than non-depressed people at retrieving bad memories but worse at retrieving good ones. And feeling as if your memory is slipping can make you feel more depressed or anxious, perpetuating the cycle.

If mental health and mood may be responsible for your brain blips, speak with a professional about talk therapy and/or medication, which may help improve your attention, concentration, and other thinking abilities, says Renn.

3. Am I eating a healthy diet?

What you eat can have a big influence on your brain, says Dr. Holland. “If you’re eating foods that provide the appropriate nutrients and bioactives, they can help prevent damage to the neurons,” he says. In a study Dr. Holland and his colleagues published in Neurology , they found that a diet filled with foods rich in flavonoids (such as dark leafy greens, tea, and tomatoes) was associated with slower rates of cognitive decline.

A plant-forward diet can also reduce the buildup of plaque in blood vessels, which is crucial because when blood vessels are clogged, your risk of small strokes increases , and over time those can lead to vascular dementia. “A brain-healthy diet, such as the Mediterranean diet or an Indian vegetarian curry diet, can reduce the risk for blockages of blood vessels , thus ensuring healthy brain circulation,” says Dr. Doraiswamy, who also points out the importance of a diet rich in B vitamins, phospholipid precursors for synapse support, and antioxidants to protect membranes from damage.

4. Am I getting enough sleep?

In midlife, you could be missing out on restorative sleep for a number of reasons, including menopause symptoms or the stress of dealing with young-adult children, elderly parents, or your job. Exhaustion can deplete your resources, including your ability to remember or learn new things.

For men especially, untreated obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can be a major contributor to brain issues, says Caccappolo. “They are having multiple hypoxic events each night when they’re not getting oxygen to the brain, which can lead to memory problems.” A review in Sleep Medicine found that attention, working memory, episodic memory, and executive function were decreased in people with OSA.

If you’re having trouble sleeping, first try improving your sleep habits by cutting out caffeine later in the day, eating lighter meals in the evening, and keeping your bedroom dark and cool. If these changes don’t work, check with your health care provider or a sleep specialist to assess whether you have OSA—treatment could help restore your sleep and your memory. For sleep disturbances due to symptoms of menopause, ask your doctor if hormone replacement therapy is right for you.

5. Do I need a hearing aid?

An intriguing new line of research has shown a connection between hearing loss and brain health . Hearing loss may interfere with cognition because it means the brain has to use many of its resources just to understand speech; hearing aids can help by making the information clearer as it enters the brain. “Having properly working hearing aids can go a long way toward boosting and preserving someone’s cognition,” says Renn. In a recent review from Singapore, the use of hearing aids was associated with a 19% decrease in the risk of long-term cognitive decline. If you notice (or family members comment) that your hearing is not what it used to be, consult with an audiologist.

6. Am I trying to do everything all at once?

Recent research suggests that multitasking —say, trying to straighten up the living room while taking a work call—could be detrimental to memory. A study in Nature found that media multitasking in particular (using several devices at once) was associated with attention lapses and decreased the ability to encode new memories. And that was in young people . For older people, multitasking may be even more detrimental, says Caccappolo. “As our processing speed gets slower, we’re slower overall when it comes to both thinking and moving,” she adds. “If you’re trying to do two or three things at the same time, you’re going to be a little bit slower at each one.”

If you’re concerned about your memory, consider getting tested: The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America provides free, confidential virtual screenings . “When people have brain blips, they may automatically worry that it’s Alzheimer’s, but there are many reasons for these changes that can be addressed,” says Audette Rackley , assistant director of strength-based programs at the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas . “It’s so important to ask, ‘How can I be creating more brain-healthy rhythms in my life?’ Just a small shift in the right direction can make an impact over time.”

When memory loss is a cause for concern

While it’s comforting to know that blips are usually nothing to be worried about, we have to face the fact that as we age, our risk of dementia does increase . One in 20 adults ages 65 to 74 has Alzheimer’s; by age 85, that number is one in three .

And then there’s the gray area known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A special report published last year by the Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 12% to 18% of people 60 or older are living with MCI, which is when someone has more cognitive issues than is typical for their age but has not yet developed dementia. “Not everybody with MCI will go on to have dementia, but some people will,” says Renn. “MCI is often a warning sign that there might be some changes that are a bit more insidious.” The Alzheimer’s Association report calculated that about a third of people with MCI develop Alzheimer’s disease within five years, but it also noted that some people with MCI revert to normal cognition or at least stabilize and don’t get any worse.

“We start to be concerned about MCI when you can’t retain new memories,” says Caccappolo. This might mean forgetting some- thing someone told you 10 minutes ago or asking the same question over and over again.

Additional signs of MCI include:

• Having trouble following directions.
• Forgetting how to do something you’ve done many times before, like make coffee.
• Getting lost going to a familiar place.

Dr. Holland says that “stepwise” memory loss is also a red flag: “If you’re always losing your keys, that’s less concerning than if you always lose your keys but now you also can’t remember how to get home,” he says. The experts point out that it is often a partner, a close friend, or a relative who notices these changes before a person with MCI does.

Brain blips that are normal with aging

• Forgetting to pay a bill.
• Forgetting a name but remembering it later.
• Slipping over a word or two.
• Misplacing your keys or your phone.
• Getting lost but finding your way via a map or GPS.

Signs of something more serious

• Forgetting to pay many bills each month.
• Forgetting that you know someone.
• Difficulty following a conversation.
• Losing things and being unable to track them down.
• Entirely forgetting how to get home.

Marisa Cohen is an editor in the Hearst Lifestyle Group’s Health Newsroom, who has covered health, nutrition, parenting and culture for dozens of magazines and websites over the past two decades.

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